Last week, we examined the concept of a Flash Poll, in which a site owner prompts their visitors with a simple question. The goal is to help the site owner engage their visitors in a meaningful way and quickly gather results. But why would site owners want to do that?

To answer this question, we offer five specific ways that Flash Polls can provide insights to site owners:

Better understand the needs of your visitors. You can ask, “What is the #1 challenge you are struggling with right now?”

Share your knowledge with your visitors. You can ask, “Do you have our FREE eBook that explains how to increase revenue?”

Conduct market research for a partner. You can ask, “Which of the following products do you prefer?”

Entertain your visitors with a provocative question. You can ask, “Are you an introvert or an extrovert?”

Get Feedback from visitors. You can ask, “Are these search results helpful?”

In fact, a good Flash Poll will allow you to do some or even all of the above at the same time. In our next post, we will cite real world examples that we can learn from, like the one from Amazon.com shown below. In this example, Amazon poses an intriguing question to its visitors.